Tag: Bedfordshire Champions

Allotment, Allotment Gardening, bare-root trees, Bedfordshire Champions, Beetroot, Blackcurrants, broad beans, celeriac, cosmos, courgettes, David Austin Roses, Dirtdigging, gardeners, Gardening, Jack O'Lantern, Malahide Allotments, Onion seed, Onions, Parsnips, pumpkins, rhubarb, Seeds, Shallots, sowing diary, Sunflowers, Wheelbarrow

Tah Dah!!!! This Year’s Sowing Diary

Although the Monster has its own sowing diary page accessible through page link up above, now that we’ve completed most (if not all) of this year’s plan we thought we’d copy and paste and place  a copy of this year’s diary as a posting in its own right,

We literally began from scratch at our new plot in January, and since then we’ve been doing this

IMAG4891
Basil; this year’s basil filled Barrow Bug

February 1st 2017     Bedfordshire Champion onion seed

March 1st 2017   Bunyard’s Exhibition broad Beans

March 5th 2017  sowed Cosmos ‘Cosmonaut’

March 5th planted 4 of Lidl’s best bare root Redcurrant 

March 4th 2017 Planted Plum tree ‘Opal’, and Peach tree ‘Red Haven’ both from Lidl

March 10th 2017 Ailsa Craig onion seed

March 12th planted replacement rose bush: David Austin Rose, Young Lycidas

March 18th 2017 sowed Basil, Misto Mix and Classic Italian

March 19th 2017 broadcast green-manure mix; phacelia, red clover,

March 28th 2017 sowed dwarf sunflowers ‘Topoline’

April 8th broadcast poppy seeds and cornflower seeds  Greenfingers Day

April 21st 2017 sowed Giant Yellow sunflower seeds

April 22nd sowed Moss Curled parsley, and dill seed

April 23rd sowed Bright lights Chard, Fire-bird Spinach, Tuscan black Kale, Italian Giant leaf parsley and Tom Thumb mix nasturtiums

April 26th sowed Wild Rocket seed

April 29th sowed Celeriac ‘Monarch’ and ‘Akito’ ridge cucumbers. Mrs dirt-Digger planted out all of the cosmos, dwarf sunflowers and autumn beauties, plus some marigolds gifted from one of our new allotment neighbours…

April 30th sowed Parsnips ‘Tender and True’, Radish ‘mixed jewels’, Italian giant-leaf basil and mixed lettuce varieties. Also planted up and potted on some fennel seedlings and pepper seedlings gifted from an allotment neighbour.

May 1st sowed Pumpkins ‘Big Max’ & ‘Jack o’Lanterns’ purchased in Toronto in August last year; Beetroot ‘Solo’; planted up Shirley & Moneymaker tomato plants, pepper seedlings and sowed ‘Gold Rush’ courgettes. 

May 2nd sowed Grandpa Otts (ipomea; morning glories)

May 13th sowed Northern Blood Reds and White Lisbon spring onions (scallions)

June 1st  Longhorn Wax dwarf french beans plus successional sowings of lettuces and radishes

June 3rd Kale, Scotch Green dwarf

July 2nd Spring Cabbage, Durham early

July 5th  Swede,Tweed

et voilá.   All sowings for this year complete

Allotment, Allotment Gardening, Spring

February Treachery

February is a treacherous month.
Being the runt of the calendar it is always found wanting when compared to the other months diary pages, and the dissident approach to adding an extra day to its measure every four years never fully camouflages the perennial happenstance where it is not only at odds with the other months, but that most of the time it is also at variance with the seasonal expectations of its own annual occurrence.
Deceiving at best, February is the gardener’s nightmare: feigning spring at mid morning, gale backed squally showers by noon often give way to some of the severest and sharpest frosts of the winter during hours of darkness. Yet, we persist with the assertion that February heralds the arrival of spring, the sneaking suspicion being that this has more to do with wishful thinking than any reality experienced in the garden.
The need to shrug-off winter’s pent-up reserves, together with perceptible increase in daily light levels often lull the naive and inexperienced into a false sense of security, and many a seed sown in February’s haste is doomed to be composted with March’s waste. The milk may be moving in the belly of the ewes, and the bright white complexion of Wordsworth’s unbidden guests may be showing on woodland floors, but it is worth remembering that these are nature’s hardy stock, far hardier than anything even the most experienced gardener itching to green fingers may have sown under horticultural fleece and propagation lighting. No one ever truly gets a head start on nature, so, take stock still, while there is still stock to take: hold your horse in the stable; keep your seed in the packet and your pots in the box. Soon enough you’ll get to grubby your hands, but before you set out to lose yourself in the doing of the garden, think on how to do it while there is still time to think on how it’s done.
A seed for cultivation:

“Those who start to garden often do the greatest harm in the garden.”
And suddenly, it is March…

Bedfordshire Champions
Bedfordshire Champions, up and out of bed…